A couple times a week, when I remember, I walk to the sofas with a cup of coffee and a pile of lists. It’s a printout of my current projects, the list of drafts of various writing things, some articles that I want to read, the list of things that have to get done before I walk out of the building.

I never stay on the sofas very long, unless I fall into the sleep that looks, I tell myself, exactly like prayer. I never stay long because when I sit down and start to look at the list, I start writing. The log-jam clears. I make sketched-out progress on four or six of the things on the list, enough to go back to my office and my computer and write emails and essays and next steps.

There is nothing special about the sofas, I don’t think. Except that I intentionally move away from my connections. I intentionally move away from people. I intentionally move to God.

Because when I walk to those sofas, I am also saying “I need to be able to hear you God.” I would like to believe that it’s what Jesus did when he walked away from the crowds into the hills to pray. When I remember, that’s what I do, taking my lists and brainstorming with God.

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Something just hit me and I hope I don’t get struck down for saying this: I used to pray, something I used to do quietly on my own since I was a kid. But a year ago or so, I began questioning the purpose: If God has a plan for me and knows what I need, why barrage Him with all of these pesky DMs? But, if the purpose of prayer is more to lay our woes at His feet so they aren’t constantly zinging around our heads, then that makes more sense.

Dear friend:

I understand your thinking. I’m wrestling through some of the things that we tell people about prayer myself. What I’m pretty clear about though is that praying is more like this conversation we are having than it is like DM’d spam.

Think about our relationship, you and me. We’ve met face to face just a couple times. But we touch base through twitter pretty often. And we email several times a year. And we are both involved in a group of people who are interacting with each other at least quarterly.

Though we are able to do things for each other, particularly help each other think, the best part of our relationship is that we have a relationship. We are friends in ways that surpass the distance, that surpass the specific actions we can do for each other.

The content of the communication is often less important than the fact that we are interacting. Every touch, every exchange, deepens and enriches our understanding of each other.

I think that’s what God’s desiring as we pray. Doing stuff is part of it. Sometimes it’s handing off woes. But the bigger thing is developing a relationship between persons. With one of those persons being God.

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Related posts on prayer:

• On being empty and grieving: A litany for the last Monday in July
• On prayer being hard sometimes: Because sometimes you can’t do two things at once. 
• On wanting to sit with Jesus: Morning coffee with Jesus
• On what a conversation with Jesus might look like: A prayer

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I’m intrigued by the stories mom finds important to tell me each time I visit and often when we talk on the phone. She talks about the night in December when we sat around a table and her granddaughter Hope talked with great clarity about the idea of church and young adults today. She talks about her prayer for peace as my dad was dying, and the sense of peace that she feels every day since then. And she talks about the time she went to college.

Mom had gone to college for two years, received a teaching certificate, and then taught for a couple years. She decided, somehow, that she needed to finish her four-year degree and so, in the mid-fifties, went to Bethel College in St Paul.

On leaving day, she packed everything in her car. She had a job lined up and thought she had a place to live. In the hesitation that came from leaving rural Wisconsin and heading to the big city, her mother said, “You don’t need to go.” “Yes, I do,” my mother said.

When she got to town, the place to live was gone. At 1pm, she went to work at Blomberg’s Pharmacy with a fragile lead and constant prayer. At 3:30, friends of her sister walked into the pharmacy, recognized her, invited her to supper at their house and offered her a place to live. She didn’t know they lived across the street.

This story she keeps telling me is a simple story of God providing when she didn’t know where to go. I think she tells me because she’s still there.

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All: Hear our prayer, O Lord.

A: I’m empty, O God, as empty as the heart of the widow walking next to the coffin of her only son. Do remember her, Jesus? No options? No hope? You healed her son. Please raise my heart.

All: Hear his prayer, O Lord.

B: I’m full, O God, thrilled with the adventure of a new week, a new morning. Yesterday was wonderful, the community, the worship. Let me remember the awareness of your presence all week long.

All: Hear her prayer, O Lord. And bring them together.

C: We are certain, O God, of the direction you are taking our family. We know that it will be hard, that love that gives up stuff and family is confusing to many, confusing to us. But we know that you are here and we know that you will be there. And we are grateful.

All: Hear their prayer, O Lord.

D: I’m so confused, O Lord, and then I hear that family and I am even more confused. How can they be certain of hearing you? How can I be certain of you hearing me? How can they pick up and leave and say that it’s you? I’d take just a whisper. Just an echo. Just a word.

All: Hear his prayer, O Lord.

C: And answer, please.

E: I am grieving. I admit it, O God. I know that you are with me. I know that. But he isn’t, not anymore. Not til forever. And I am trusting, that I am. But I am alone.

All: Hear her prayer, O Lord.

Leader: We are here, God, as different as apples and transmissions. Our fullness and emptiness grate on each other. So grant us your peace. No other will do.

When your little kid wanders off and you find him twenty minutes later, you get really mad at him. “Ben, I’ve told you a ton of times to never to wander off like that!” But what you really mean is, “Ben, I love you so much and am so glad that you are not lost!” The heat of emotions gets us every time. Recently, we have tended to get angry at those who have done things to harm themselves and us, needlessly.

So one thing we’ve been pondering – and seeking to apply – is that it’s great to first go to God with our anger and frustration. After then we can go to others.

Are we weak and heavy laden, cumbered with a load of care?
Precious Savior, still our refuge, take it to the Lord in prayer.
Do your friends despise, forsake you? Take it to the Lord in prayer!
In His arms He’ll take and shield you; you will find a solace there.

That is from an old hymn, written in 1855: What a Friend we have in Jesus.

Yes, we don’t talk like that anymore, but just as you would read Shakespeare, look beyond the language to see the depth of truth and meaning there.

This is such a simple truth, but it’s something that I have to keep remembering, re-learning and applying again – over and over. Maybe a way to expand our thinking on this is to think of new ways that we can do this today. Share your idea in the comments to help all of us move forward in this. Or share a story of how you did this, to encourage the rest of us. Thank you!

(Paul Merrill writes here every First Friday)

I don’t think I’ve talked to you about what I think it means to pray for someone, but that story is a perfect illustration.

I have this idea that “praying for” can mean “praying about” or “praying with” someone. So when someone says, “pray for me” they might mean “pray about this situation that I’m in.”  Or they might mean “pray with me and ask God to fix this because if we get enough people asking him, he’s bound to pay attention.”

However, I’ve got this idea that “praying for” might  mean “Would you talk to God because I can’t right now.”

It’s like, while I was holding my hand on the red line, I couldn’t make a call. But that didn’t mean that I was doing something wrong, it meant that I was engaged.

I said to Nancy late last week, “I’m looking forward to being able to pray again.” I wasn’t ignoring God. I was as aware of his presence and peace as I have ever been. But I didn’t have time for conversation. I was holding my hand on a red line to stop the bleeding. I had friends who were calling 911.

“My heart has heard you say, ‘Come and talk with me.’ And my heart responds, “Lord, I am coming.’ ” (Psalm 20:7)

That’s a great way to start a day. Or end a day.

David, the guy who wrote those words, preceded those thoughts by saying, “Hear me as I pray, O Lord. Be merciful and answer me!” So God did respond by asking David to sit down and talk. Then in the talking with God, David would get his answers.

How often are we willing to sit down and talk with God? Talk. Listen. (Not just talk.)

A great time to do that might be on your drive (or train ride) to work. Or on the plane to that next conference, when you just don’t feel like talking to the person next to you. God will listen, without complaining. He usually doesn’t talk till you are ready to listen to Him. That’s not always true. Sometimes He shouts at us when we won’t listen any other way. Often He will talk through events in our lives. The “wake up!” variety.

Sometimes we are in a place where God seems silent. It’s helpful to zip down to the end of that Psalm to see how David responded to that situation: “Wait patiently for the Lord. Be brave and courageous. Yes, wait patiently for the Lord.”

Being patient can be really hard. Maybe it’s one of the hardest things we will face. But David urges us to be brave in the face of the unknown. Maybe you’re waiting on a job. Waiting on your daughter to choose her life direction, on trying for a baby or finding a life partner. Or waiting to see how you can make ends meet this month. Be brave. Wait. And talk to God. And listen.

At times when by every right, everything emotionally should be cascading in, there can be peace. Not a denial, but an acknowledgment that yes, indeed, there is cancer, but God has a clue. Not a denial but an acknowledgment that yes, that casket holds the body of an infant daughter, but God is present.

Ah, but the peace doesn’t come because suddenly everything makes sense: “If I get cancer, then other people will understand that life is important and so my life, however short, will accomplish something.”

That kind of explaining would allow us to arrive at peace as a some rationalization of suffering. And I’m not sure that’s what Paul means when he writes,

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:6-7)

I know. We want a recipe. We want to know that we will understand why things are the way they are. And in these two sentences there is no promise of understanding. There is no promise that things will work out fine.

Instead, Paul says that our hearts and our minds, those things that churn and process and spin and struggle in the middle of pain and chaos and ambiguity and inadequacy, will be guarded.

I suppose that part of the guarding comes from inviting someone else into the discussion. Knowing that someone who is capable of acting on our behalf is aware of the problem gives peace. But sometimes, nonsensical peace, incomprehensible peace, is an evidence of God, offered to rational minds in danger of spinning out of control. But, says Paul, you gotta ask.

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight,  O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.

It’s from Psalm 19. a prayer that David wrote out. I sent it to someone who was speaking somewhere yesterday. Then I thought, “I need to keep that in mind.”

So I tried.

It was challenging. There were moments in the day that went crazy. Several people asking questions, each before the previous question was answered or problem was solved. There were moments when I started to feel a bit cranky, a bit defensive. There were moments when I started wondering about the projects I wasn’t getting done, or the value of the ones I was working on. There was a stretch where nothing was working on one of the extra projects that had been added to my day.

But I kept coming back to that sentence, saying it out loud, considering it in my heart.

• Sometimes, I was looking for affirmation from God, the way I show a boss how I’m doing a project: “Would you let me know if this is going the way you want?”
• Sometimes, I was wanting to get thoughts and words because, following a short sleep the previous night, my capacity to meditate (to reflect and ponder and consider and chew) was negligible.
• Sometimes, I was making an offering, kind of like writing a poem or a post and giving it with a “here’s what I’m thinking. I hope you like it.”

As I neared the end of the day, with only a bit more writing and teaching to do, I realized that I had spent much time in conscious conversation with God.

I think the prayer was answered.

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For more on reflective scripture reading and prayer, see “the heart of lectio divina.“

I’d love to give me that, too.

You are probably better than I am at stopping. Me? When I sit down to be still, it allows me to remember the things that aren’t done. It allows me to think about what I could be doing with this time. It allows me to fill the time with chatter. Or with clutter. Or with activity.

I wonder if part of the problem with the way I try to be still. I try to concentrate. I try to be quiet. I try to stop, so that maybe I can hear God and hear myself.

Here’s what’s interesting, however. When I decide to spend time with Nancy, I don’t talk about the need to be still.  I don’t berate myself for my incapacity for not being with her. I don’t spend time not with her thinking I should be with her.

I go find her.

If I am having a hard time concentrating, I tell her. (And when I do, it usually comes as no surprise to her.) And I may ask her to help me remember something. And I may say, “can we walk and talk?” And I may say, “I’ll be back in 5 minutes.”

So here’s what I’m thinking. I’m thinking that maybe I should stop worrying so much about emptying my head and start working more on listening to and for Jesus. In the words of other people. In the words written for us by John and Matthew and others.

Maybe if I thought more about conversation with Him and less about being silent first, just like Nancy does, He would help with both.

Happy weekend, friends.

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Related post: A question of stopping

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